Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan

Transcription

1 DOI: /ejop Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan Ursula Renz Abstract: In the introduction to the Leviathan, Hobbes famously defends the anthropological point of departure of his theory of the state by invoking the Delphic injunction Know thyself! of which he presents a peculiar reading thereafter. In this paper, I present a reading of the anthropology of the Leviathan that takes this move seriously. In appealing to Delphic injunction, Hobbes wanted to prompt a particular way of reading his anthropology for which it is crucial that the reader relate the presented anthropological views to his self-conception. The anthropology of the Leviathan is thus a kind of manual for a certain kind of selfreflection by which the reader s self-knowledge is to be improved. Furthermore, I will argue that Hobbes interpretation of the Delphic injunction illuminates several theoretical issues relevant to the epistemology of that kind of self-knowledge that was demanded by the Delphic injunction.while Hobbes does not solve all the epistemological problems related with the ideal appealed to by this inscription, he does provide some interesting insights into some general requirements that any epistemological account of Socratic self-knowledge has to meet. In the introduction to the Leviathan, Hobbes famously defends the anthropological point of departure of his theory of the state by invoking the Delphic injunction Know thyself!, of which he presents a peculiar reading thereafter. Strikingly, there is not very much literature in Hobbes scholarship on this move. 1 If addressed explicitly, it has mostly been aligned with the remark in 7 of the chapter on method of De Corpore, where Hobbes claims that we know the human mind not only by the synthetic method but also by any man s experience that will but examine his own mind. 2 While this parallel places the Leviathan in the vicinity of Hobbes systematic writing, it also exhibits how intricately the interpretation of his appeal to the Delphic injunction relates to several long-standing controversies in Hobbes scholarship. Providing an instruction of how to read the Leviathan, the appeal to the Delphic injunction is, first, key for the hermeneutical question of how the Leviathan, considered as a text, is related to the texts constituting the Elementa. Next, it is also essential for the problem of what kind of psychology the alleged reliance of Hobbes political theory on his anthropology requires, an issue that has proved very controversial. Whereas some have assumed complete theoretical continuity between Hobbes texts and have therefore read the Leviathan in line with the Elementa project, 3 others have posited a fundamental difference between the Elementa and the Leviathan and have opted for a humanistic reading of Hobbes European Journal of Philosophy 26:1 ISSN pp. 4 29

2 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 5 anthropology. 4 Finally, the interpretation of Hobbes appeal to the Delphic injunction relates to a third controversy in Hobbes scholarship over his views about, and his usage of, rhetoric, a question that has been debated for several years now. 5 A well-grounded and careful reading of Hobbes appeal to the Delphic injunction may contribute substantially to these debates, albeit only indirectly. As I am going argue in this paper, this move is meant to indicate that the Leviathan is a different sort of text that is distinct from the Elementa both in its addressing a broader audience and in its pursuing a different kind of goal, which is not to improve anthropological theory. This makes room for reconciling certain alternative interpretive attitudes that have notoriously separated Hobbes scholarship into two camps. There is no doubt, I think, that Hobbes was a naturalist, and this certainly requires both that his political philosophy be in harmony with his natural philosophy and that his anthropology and psychology follow the guideline of mechanist physics. 6 But this is not to preclude that Hobbes integrates certain insights deriving from a more humanist stance as it were, insights, moreover, the consideration of which may yield an image of Hobbes as being concerned, in an almost existentialist manner, with human nature. 7 It is against this background that I suggest a new reading of Hobbes call for self-knowledge, the overall aim of which is to shed new light on the project pursued in the Leviathan, or its first part. This project, I will argue, is educational rather than analytical in spirit. The goal is not to examine the human mind, but to teach the reader about the properties of his own mind. The reference to the Delphic injunction is significant for the way in which Hobbes wishes in the anthropology of the Leviathan to address his audience by means of it; as I shall argue, it indicates specifically how the reader is expected to take notice of, and internalize, his anthropological insights, but it is not a matter of demonstrating their truth. This being so, it neither reveals the theoretical basis of Hobbes anthropological views nor reflects the scientific method of the Hobbesian anthropology, and hence does not represent a theory about the way in which human nature is to be investigated. 8 Thus, I want to expose Hobbes educational ambition in the Leviathan by proposing a new interpretation of its first part. My hypothesis is that Hobbes aim is to initiate a particular way of reading the first part of the Leviathan, for which it is crucial that the reader relate the presented views to his self-conception. Hobbes wants us to read part one of the Leviathan in such a way that we think of the anthropological claims it contains as describing ourselves. The anthropology of the Leviathan is thus, as it were, a manual for a certain kind of self-reflection by which the reader s self-knowledge is to be improved. In the first part of the paper, I defend my overall interpretive thesis. Comparing the themes addressed in the Leviathan with the ones dealt with in the Elementa, I will argue that in the Leviathan Hobbes is pursuing an educational project for which he relies in many ways on the reader s adopting a first-personal perspective with respect to what she reads. The second part examines the epistemological assumptions contained in the interpretation of the Delphic injunction that Hobbes provides in the second half of the Introduction. This text raises many problems that Hobbes does not explicitly address, not to mention solve, in a satisfying way. But

3 6 Ursula Renz as I am going to show, Hobbes exhibits a striking awareness of the problems one has to tackle when developing an epistemology of Socratic self-knowledge. In the third part, I will take a closer look at the educational practice by which Hobbes tries to persuade the reader to embrace his anthropological views on a first-personal level. I will end with some general remarks situating Hobbes educational program in the larger context of his philosophy. A final remark before I start. One might wonder what kind of self-knowledge Hobbes calls for when appealing to the Delphic injunction. I will address this question in the second part of the paper. So much, however, is clear from the outset: This imperative was certainly not concerned with what in contemporary philosophy is called self-knowledge, i.e. the purportedly immediately accessible knowledge of one s mental states 9 ; for that knowledge we get for free. Instead, what is at stake here is the kind of substantial self-knowledge that includes anthropological knowledge and is usually considered a personal achievement. In discussions of early modern philosophy, it is often referred to as Socratic self-knowledge. Unfortunately, what this type of self-knowledge may be taken to consist in is rarely examined from an epistemological point of view. 10 As it will turn out, Hobbes, while not solving all the epistemological problems related with Socratic self-knowledge, does provide some interesting insights into some general requirements that any epistemological account of it has to meet. The Educational Project of Part One of the Leviathan and the Role of the First Person Comparing the anthropology of the Elementa with the first part of the Leviathan, one will soon notice that, in comparison with De Corpore and De Homine, the anthropology of the Leviathan omits any farther-reaching physical discussion, including all optics. In particular, the Leviathan offers no detailed causal analysis of the psychological properties of man. This is not to say that physical causation plays no role anymore in the latter text, for there are several passages in which Hobbes writes about the mechanistic principles driving or even constituting our psychological properties. In chapter one, for instance, he discusses how sensation arises when a moving external body impinges on the sense organs. 11 Similarly, chapter two shows that imagination is due to the continuation of the internal motion by which some former sense impression is retained. 12 Furthermore, accounts of physical causation are present implicitly in many of Hobbes definitions of phenomena usually related to rationality, as, for instance, when he equates the will with the last Appetite in Deliberating. 13 Nonetheless, these passages provide no complete causal explanations of mental phenomena, and it thus seems as if Hobbes mechanistic physics is assumed as background, but is not intended to serve or furnish a complete or systematic mechanistic account of the human mind. How can we account for this difference of approach between the Leviathan and the other texts mentioned? It certainly does not indicate a fundamental change in

4 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 7 Hobbes doctrines. To be sure, there are crucial differences with respect to certain problems and issues, such as the problem of authorization, which I am going to address in the third section. But these are rather variations on a common theme and do not express a fundamental change in the basic doctrine. Still, the mentioned differences suggest that the Leviathan aspires to a different purpose. At this point, it is worth taking a closer look at a peculiarity of the philosophical method practiced in the Elementa. In the beginning of the second part of De Corpore, at which point Hobbes is initiating a discussion of his natural philosophy, he famously introduces his annihilation hypothesis, i.e. the methodological fiction that everything besides our ideas is annihilated. This fiction, which requires, in the form of a methodological proviso, that we consider all our ideas either as internal accidents of our mind or as species of external things, not as really existing, but appearing only to exist (DCo;1841: 93f.), 14 lays the ground for the subsequent derivation of all further claims from a causal analysis of the phantasms provided by the senses. We can conclude that in the Elementa, Hobbes eventually aims at giving a more-or-less complete causal account of his views on all nature, mankind and political institutions. 15 The case is different in the Leviathan. Here, by contrast, Hobbes dispenses with farther-reaching causal analysis, and he does so quite deliberately; as he says in the beginning of the first chapter, [t]o know the natural cause of Sense is not very necessary to the business in hand. 16 He obviously thinks that there is no need for detailed causal analysis in this text. Yet, as becomes clear just after the quoted passage, he nonetheless wants to make sure that sensation, or more generally mental states, are understood as the effect of some motion caused by external bodies. This indicates that Hobbes wishes us to presuppose some of the details of his mechanistic account of the mind, although his main project here is not to provide a complete or definitive explanation of the mind in those terms. Rather, as I shall now attempt to show, his project in the Leviathan is of a markedly pedagogical nature: It does not seek merely to defend in an abstract manner the theoretical validity of the causal-mechanistic account, even though, of course, he presupposes its truth. What he is doing here is to pitch or tailor some premises and results of this account to an audience interested in politics rather than in science. 17 This does not entail that the Leviathan must be committed to a different theory on mankind, nor does Hobbes, as some have alleged, employ another, humanist, method of inquiry; rather, he is concerned with another kind of purpose, namely, convincing a certain audience of his anthropological views. Note that we have to distinguish three different levels of analysis here to get things right: The level of theory, the level of method, and the level of purpose or the particular aim of the text. While on the level of theory the Leviathan is consistent with the Elementa, there is, I think, a marked difference on the level of purpose. This result, in turn, has a negative impact on any decision of the question of method; given that there is a difference of purpose, no conclusions can be drawn with regard to the method employed, as only the Elementa are engaged in inquiring systematically into human nature, whereas in the Leviathan, method is merely a matter of exposing certain insights.

5 8 Ursula Renz This analysis can be confirmed if we take a closer look at the contents of the first lesson Hobbes wishes his readers to appreciate. As he writes in the introduction to the Leviathan, the first part is to consider man as the Matter and the Artificer of the commonwealth. Hobbes first lesson must thus provide the reader with a view on mankind that allows her to understand both how man is the matter of the commonwealth and how he can be the maker of the state. Now, one might say that in order to acquire this understanding causal knowledge is necessary. How does this fit with the above observation that, unlike the Elementa, the Leviathan is not concerned with causal analysis? It is true, some causal knowledge is indeed required for the Leviathan, too, and this is quite obvious with regard to the notion of man s constituting the matter of the state. Understanding man as such requires that one conceive of the faculties and limitations of man as causally determining his social life. This presupposes much causal knowledge. But it is not necessary that the reader have detailed knowledge of the complete causal history determining man s behavior. Rather than investigating all the particular causes of man s mind and behavior, the reader has simply to acknowledge the idea of motion as the general principle of mental causation. 18 But how does causality matter to the reader s notion of man s being the artificer of the state? The answer to this question is more complicated and requires first considering what it means to say that someone is the artificer of something. For a person to be the artificer of something, it is necessary that she play a crucial role in its causation. The thing in question must, in some sense or other, be effectuated by the person we consider as its artificer. Yet that there is a causal relation between the person and the object is not sufficient for someone s being the latter s artificer. We are the causes of many things of which we are not the artificer. Man is assumed to have caused climate change, but he is not considered the artificer of the climate change. As a second requirement for a person s being the artificer of a thing, therefore, we can discern the idea that the artifact in question has to be effectuated deliberately by the artificer, rather than unintentionally. Or more precisely, to bring about the artifact must be the very goal of some intentional action of the agent. We can conclude that understanding man as the artificer of the state is not to be reductively accounted for by mere causal knowledge of man s behavior. The second aspect of Hobbes program to understand man as the artificer of the state thus exhibits an additional requirement: To think of man as the artificer of the state requires that one conceive of the state as the intended product of man s deliberate actions, and this involves conceiving of man as an agent. Clearly, given the mechanist framework of the Hobbesian anthropology, man has no free will. Human agency cannot therefore consist in a free and self-determined choice among options. But Hobbes nonetheless assumes that it makes a difference whether we think of man (i) as being some kind of agent or (ii) only passively, as matter, and we may presume that Hobbes also wants his reader to see this difference. Otherwise, he would not have distinguished man s being the artificer explicitly from his being the matter of the state in the first place. It thus seems crucial for Hobbes educational project that the reader see how man, notwithstanding his behavior being caused by mere matter and motion, can be understood as a cause in

6 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 9 his own right, that is, in the more active and practically efficacious manner that seems implied in the notion of man as the artificer of the state. It is against this background that I suggest interpreting the second half of the introduction to the Leviathan. In aligning his approach with the tradition of appealing to the Delphic injunction, Hobbes indicates, as I will argue below, that he expects the reader to acknowledge the proposed anthropological views on mankind from a first-personal perspective. But why is it necessary to adopt a first-personal perspective, in order to get a grasp of man s being the artificer of the state? Admittedly, if Hobbes aim was only to convey an understanding of man s being the matter of the state, our adopting a first-personal perspective would not be essential. It is possible to conceive of ants as the matter of ant colonies without reflecting on the ant s life from a first-personal perspective. The situation is different, however, with regard to the second aspect of Hobbes anthropological lesson. As I have argued above, to understand how man is the artificer of the state requires that one conceive of the state in terms of an intended result of man s deliberate actions; yet to think of the effects of man s behavior in these terms presupposes some knowledge of his aims and intentions. Now, as Elizabeth Anscombe showed a few decades ago, intentions, goals, or aims belong to the things that are known without observation, and this suggests that knowledge of an agent s intentions involves some irreducible first-personal perspective. 19 Now, contrary to what one might infer from the widespread image of Hobbes as the arch-naturalist, he apparently shares this insight, for he claims that we cannot discover the design of man s actions in a safe way without comparing them with our own. 20 This indicates that Hobbes considers it a prerequisite of the reader s understanding of man s being the artificer of the state that she adopts a first-personal point of view. But this is not the whole story, for this requirement also changes the way in which the reader is to think of man s being the matter of the state. One has to take into account here that one cannot take these two sides of Hobbes educational program apart without changing the essence of its lesson. 21 We may and should of course distinguish features describing man as the matter from those yielding the understanding of man being the artificer of the state. These two aspects of Hobbes anthropology can be separated for analytical purposes, but it is by taking them together that his educational program derives its peculiar motivation. For whereas understanding man as the artificer of the state requires the adoption of a first-personal perspective, understanding man as matter demands that one come to think of human desires and intentions as conditioned by the causal principles of mechanist physics. Following Hobbes naturalism, these are just two sides of the same coin, and this is a matter of particular urgency for him, as we are easily led astray by our imagination to think of ourselves as exceptional. To acquire the right understanding of man as being both the matter and the artificer of the state therefore requires that we accept the Hobbesian anthropology as a description of our own condition and that we learn to think of our own intentions, which we know from a first-personal perspective, in terms of this third-personal description.

7 10 Ursula Renz To summarize the results of this section, we can say that the goal of the first part of the Leviathan is not to demonstrate the truth of Hobbes anthropology, even though, of course, its truth is presupposed; rather, it primarily aims at educating the reader to think of herself in terms of Hobbes views. Thus the reader is not expected solely to affirm the truth of Hobbes anthropology, but to relate its particular tenets to the mental properties she knows from a first-personal perspective and to reflectonwhatshedesires,feels,andintendsinlightofthethird-personal views she is presented with when reading Hobbes anthropology. Ideally, she will thus have already improved her self-conception when she starts thinking about the need for a social contract and tries to understand how man can also be the artificer of the state. Reading Mankind in Oneself: Hobbes Model for the Epistemology of Improvable Self-knowledge I argued in the last section that Hobbes pursues an educational program that is grounded in the expectation that the reader relate the Hobbesian anthropology to her first-personal knowledge of her mental life, so that she both improves her self-conception and gets into the position to see how man can be the artificer of the state. The question arises how this expectation is defended epistemologically. How do we have to think of this process of improving one s self-conception by reading the Leviathan? What conceptions, in other words, of self-reflection and self-knowledge underlie Hobbes educational program? Hobbes neither addresses this question at length nor proposes a theory of selfknowledge elsewhere. But right after the exposition of the organization of the book, he makes a few remarks on his understanding of the Delphic injunction that contain a couple of interesting insights that illuminate the nature of the kind of selfknowledge he appears to have in mind. Unfortunately, these insights are extremely under-theorized, and are thus easily missed. Before addressing them, therefore, let us consider the underlying structure of the passage. Roughly, the text can be divided into four steps: (a) Voicing his anthropological account. In a first step, Hobbes justifies the anthropological point of departure by reminding the reader of two sayings on human nature, both current in early modern philosophy. The first consists in the commonplace that Wisedome is acquired, not by reading of Books, but of Men, which is likely a reference to Galileo Galilei s famous metaphor of the book of nature 22 ; the second is the Latin version of the Delphic inscription, Nosce teipsum, which is translated, remarkably, by Read thy self and not, as one might expect, by Know thy self. (b) Specification of the target of self-knowledge. In the next step, Hobbes opposes his interpretation of the Delphic injunction to other interpretations current at the time. In particular he emphasizes the following two points: (1) Self-knowledge, as conceived by the ancients, aims at the acknowledgment of universal truths

8 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 11 about mankind. It is hence neither about the particular contents or qualities of our mental states, nor about our individual dispositions or character traits. 23 What we ought to find by looking into ourselves are, Hobbes says, the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. (2) By adding the phrase upon the like occasions, he further accentuates that self-knowledge, as he conceives of it, is not so much concerned with a specification of the essential properties of humanity, but with the understanding of how our actions and feelings are conditioned in a mechanistic universe. One could say that Hobbes anthropology aims at knowledge of mankind in terms of the human condition, rather than thenatureofman. At first, this might seem puzzling. Why does Hobbes call for a process of selfreading or looking into oneself, if he is primarily interested in particular aspects of the human condition? Usually, we do not engage in introspection when we want to know more about humanity as a whole. This suggests that Hobbes notion of self-reading is more complex than what contemporary epistemologists refer to when talking about introspection. Still, it remains an open question how any kind of self-cognition may contribute to our knowing the conditions of human life. Hobbes does not provide a direct answer to this question, but, as I am going to argue in a moment, he does indicate a preliminary solution to it through his usage of the metaphor of reading. (c) Raising a problem. Hobbes next step consists in a diagnosis of a fundamental problem. His point is this: We all are subject to the same kinds of passions, such as desires, hopes, and fears, but we do not desire, hope, or fear the same objects. To say that men s passions and thoughts are similar is thus not to say that they are directed toward the same things. At first, this insight might seem trivial. Surely, we do not love the very same things. I love cats, whereas you love dogs. But this does not preclude the possibility that I may compare the feeling I am experiencing when observing cats with the emotion you are undergoing when thinking of your dog. So, one might ask, where is the problem? I think that this passage needs to be read in the light of the Hobbesian anthropology as it is discussed later in the book. Given his mechanist views on the human mind, we have to give up any ambition to specify types of passions by pointing out various types of intentional objects. But, as already mentioned in the previous section, Hobbes also admits that observation of the actions or movements of men without knowing their intentions, or design, does not provide the kind of understanding he wants us to get either. He obviously thinks that the intentional objects our thoughts are concerned with or the goals our actions aim at are an essential part of our mental reactions on certain occasions. Hobbes is thus in a real dilemma here: He can neither simply rely on our first-personal knowledge of our intentions or of the targets of our desires, nor can he dismiss it. It is important to see that Hobbes is not adopting some kind of other-mind skepticism here; his point is not that we can never be sure about the objects and intentions of other people. On the contrary, he explicitly admits that we

9 12 Ursula Renz may know the intentions of at least those people with which we are already well acquainted. Nor does he doubt the possibility of introspection or address the question of the special authority of the first person with regard to one s own mental properties. None of these issues discussed in contemporary debates about self-knowledge is addressed here. The problem Hobbes is struggling with is rather this: If the knowledge we gain by looking into ourselves or by the acquaintance with others mental lives is so restricted, as he seems to think, how, then, can we ever affirm universal claims about mankind on the basis of it? The problem is clear: Unless Hobbes finds a way to negotiate this difficulty, he will have to give up the ambition to provide us with universal truths about mankind, rather than a restricted account of the goings-on in a given individual s mind. (d) Addressing the reader. It is against this background that in the fourth and final passage of the introduction, Hobbes addresses the sovereign as the ideal reader of his tract. This move contains several steps. First, Hobbes explains that the ambition to seek universal truths about mankind is particularly important for future governors. He that is to govern a whole Nation, he writes, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but mankind. 24 Hobbes then affirms how difficult it is to accomplish this task, for knowledge of mankind is harder [to achieve] than to learn any language. Yet, he adds, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. In sum, Hobbes suggests tackling the problem raised before by advising the reader to compare what she is reading in the Leviathan with what she is reading in herself. In which sense does this move indicate a way out of Hobbes problem? Clearly, one might still wonder how Hobbes, as the author whose task it is to expose the results of his own self-reading, has got the knowledge in question. However, for that reader who follows Hobbes advice, the problem becomes manageable, for she is in a position from which she can compare the contents of the reading proposed by Hobbes with the results of her self-scrutiny. And that is also how she can read mankind in herself. This might appear unsatisfying, and indeed I think that this is a less-than-ideal solution. But there is no other solution according to Hobbes, since, as he explicitly says in the closing sentence, this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration. 25 What is achieved by these considerations? What insights into the epistemology of Socratic self-knowledge does this interpretation of the Delphic injunction provide? To begin with let me recall my comments on the third step. As I mentioned there, Hobbes seems to assume that our first-personal knowledge of our intentions is both a problematic and, in a sense, indispensable source of anthropological knowledge. On the one hand, he explicitly says that we cannot make sense of other men s actions unless we compare them with our own aims. We have therefore to think about the targets of our own actions and thoughts from a first-personal point

10 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 13 of view, even if this is not the very goal of the inquiry; but otherwise we never get any knowledge of mankind at all. To observe the actions of others, without comparing them with our own is, Hobbes contends, nothing but a vain attempt to decipher [them] without a key. On the other hand, Hobbes is also emphasizing the influence of individual constitution and education on the things desired, feared, hoped, &c., and it is hard to see how one could account for these influences unless we rely on some external knowledge. Against this background, we can assume that by calling for a process of self-reading, Hobbes is not simply appealing to the reader s introspective self-reflection. To understand ourselves as subject to the influence of some condition, introspective knowledge of our intentions or of the objects of our desires is necessary, but not sufficient; it does not provide us with any further insight into the causes that shape our mental states. What Hobbes requires, then, is that the reader engages in a process of self-scrutiny that involves introspection, while it relates it to external knowledge. But how is such a relating of introspection to external knowledge to be conceived? I have already indicated how Hobbes thinks of solving this problem in my exposition of the fourth step: He addresses the reader and advises her how to relate his views to herself. Hobbes thus introduces the idea of a systematic cooperation between the author and the readers of the Leviathan, a cooperation that presupposes some special kind of division of labor. While his task as the author consists in the explication of his own reading of mankind, it is the reader s duty to compare the results of the author s self-scrutinizing reading with the things she sees in introspection. What Hobbes calls for is sort of a guided self-reading, where the reader deciphers her introspective self-awareness by means of the description of man proposed by the text. At first, this might look like a cheap rhetorical trick simply employed to prevent further discussion. It has to be admitted that Hobbes does not get rid of any of the difficulties connected to the issue of first-person authority, for which he has not provided a solution yet. But this is not what this passage is about. The problem at stake here is that it is not clear how one can get universal knowledge of mankind, given that introspection is fundamentally limited in its reach. Yet if it is this problem that Hobbes is concerned with, his calling for the reader s cooperation is a pretty clever move. To see why, one has to be clear on the requirement that any account seeking to solve this problem has to meet: It has to show what a cognitive process might look like that systematically mediates between external and internal perspectives on human mental life. I think that, even though Hobbes account is unsatisfying in many respects, his suggestion that the reader should take the anthropological tenets maintained in the Leviathan and consider if he find not the same in himself does meet this requirement. One might object here that the mentioned hermeneutical division of labor does not answer the basic epistemological question of how universal claims about mankind can be justified by one s looking into oneself. He has only shown how some universal claim about mankind can be comprehended and affirmed by the reader as holding for her, too.

11 14 Ursula Renz At this point, it is important to see that Hobbes does not really face this problem, for given his methodological nominalism there is no principled distinction between the validity of universal claims and individual statements. As he is going to develop his view in chapter four of the Leviathan, it is possible for him to reason about the properties of a type of thing by considering the property of an individual belonging to this type. Nothing prevents him from making a case for some anthropological view by examining himself, as long as he avoids appealing to those very features that distinguish him from other men. 26 Furthermore, one has to be aware that, if the ambition of the first book of the Leviathan is educational in spirit, Hobbes has not to worry as much about the scientific validity of his approach as about the way in which the reader takes his views in. The epistemological problem to be addressed here is, therefore, this: How is it possible for someone to affirm certain existing claims about human nature by looking into her own mind? This problem is indeed tackled by the mentioned hermeneutic division of labor. Yet, to see why, it is important to explicate a theoretical commitment involved in Hobbes usage of the notion of reading. This notion is not only employed as a metaphor to describe the process of introspective self-scrutiny, nor is it, as Skinner has suggested, an indication of the difficulties involved in the process of acquiring anthropological knowledge through self-scrutiny. 27 Rather, I think, it points to a structural peculiarity underlying the concept of reading, the understanding of which also allows us to get a better grasp of the kind of process Hobbes has in mind here. As is well known, it is constitutive for any process of reading that the signs to be looked at are distinct from the contents read. The act of reading implies, in other words, the supposition of the semiotic distinction between sign and designated thing. This distinction is crucial for Hobbes metaphorical use of the word reading, as can be proven by the fact that in his description of the process of self-reflection he draws on an analogous distinction. 28 There he says: [W]hosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he does, when he does think, opine, reason, hope, feare, [and so on he] shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. 29 Note that, just as we distinguish the signs looked at from the contents read, Hobbes wants us to distinguish between the activity of looking into ourselves and the very act of knowing or reading. And that is indeed crucial if the first is to become an instrument for the second, as is indicated by the adverb thereby. One might think that this is trivial, but it is not, as can be seen from a comparison with contemporary discussion. Self-knowledge as it is conceived today is typically denied such a distinction. To acquire self-knowledge, it is often assumed, no special activity such as observation or drawing inferences is required. Further, many deny that self-knowledge consists in a kind of higher-order knowledge. This is considered problematic for two reasons. First, it is taken to be hard to account for the very special role of the first-person in self-knowledge, if it is conceived in terms of some higher-order knowledge; second, it is notoriously

12 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 15 difficult for higher-order accounts of self-knowledge to avoid infinite regress. Now, it seems to me that while these reasons should convince us to avoid using higherorder models when accounting for the phenomenon of self-consciousness, 30 it is no problem to employ them to conceive of Socratic self-knowledge. It is not clear whether Hobbes is thinking of self-knowledge in terms of some kind of higher-order knowledge; he does not make explicit what conception of self-knowledge the usage of the metaphor of self-reading relies on. What we can say, however, is this: If the ambition of part one of the Leviathan is educational rather than analytical in spirit, then Hobbes must think of self-knowledge as improvable. This requires that he conceive of it in terms of some kind of empirical knowledge, of some knowledge, in other words, that is to be learnt, and not just to be had. We can thus presume that there is a clear stance behind Hobbes use of the metaphor of reading the crucial point of which is this: The self-scrutiny called for by the Delphic injunction is a process by which we learn about our mental states and not just consciously have them. If there is such a thing as Socratic self-knowledge, therefore, it must be the result of a process of self-reading (and hence self-discovery), and is not to be reduced to an epistemic relation we have to our mental states simply in virtue of our being in them. But why, one might ask, would Hobbes pay attention to this distinction? There are several reasons for this. First, note that it is in virtue of this distinction that we may conceive of introspection as providing us with knowledge about mankind and not just about ourselves. On the other hand, Hobbes obviously wants to conceive of self-knowledge as something that can be improved by the acquisition of some knowledge about mankind. Were he to conceive of self-knowledge as something we just have, this would not seem possible. More specifically, it is due to the distinction between the activity of self-scrutiny or looking into ourselves and the act of knowing ourselves that the idea of an epistemic division of labor between author and reader is a plausible option. This is not at all surprising, since Hobbes has actually derived this distinction by exploiting the analogous distinction between sign and designated thing underlying the semantics of the word reading. Still, the distinction between the activity of self-scrutiny and the act of knowing oneself is absolutely crucial for Hobbes intention of educating the reader to think of herself in terms of his views. This reveals an important generalizable insight: That we can separate the act of knowing ourselves from the activity by which we arrive at the point where we can perform this act is a necessary condition for the assumption that other persons may be involved in the whole process. To sum up, we can thus say that the views on self-knowledge contained in the Introduction to the Leviathan are richer and more reflective than one might think at first glance. Although Hobbes points remain implicit, and although his account is far from giving conclusive epistemological answers to the major problems, it is strikingly consistent with the overall educational program of the Leviathan. Besides, our discussion has yielded important insights into the following requirement that any epistemology of Socratic self-knowledge has to meet: In order to conceive of self-knowledge as something that can be improved, be that

13 16 Ursula Renz by education or by some other empirical processes, it must be shown how external and internal perspectives on the human mind can be mediated. Hobbes provides no answer to the question of how this requirement is to be met. But his use of the metaphor of self-reading makes it clear that it exists. Hobbes Educational Practice, or the Art of Enhancing Others Self-knowledge I have argued that in the first part of the Leviathan, Hobbes aims at improving the reader s self-conception rather than demonstrating the truth of his anthropological views. The previous section has shown, moreover, that he is quite aware of the difficulties that an epistemological defense of this educational approach raises. I will now examine some instances of Hobbes educational practice. What do his views on mankind tell us about the art of enhancing others self-knowledge? Before getting to the details, we have to appreciate the psychological difficulty that Hobbes educational project faces. Besides the fact that his mechanistic account of mankind was quite novel at the time and was therefore, presumably, not easily accepted, the account poses also an enormous challenge to the reader. Famously, the Hobbesian outlook on human nature is, to say the least, rather negative. It is difficult or unappealing to identify with such an unflattering picture. Indeed, many of Hobbes anthropological views are such as to pose a serious obstacle to the realization of his educational project. For whereas his tenets may appear acceptable, if considered abstractly as general anthropological truths, they are not easily applied at the personal level as providing insight into one s own psychological dispositions. Yet, as we have seen, it is the latter kind of insight with which Hobbes is concerned. According to my interpretation, his intention is not just to provide the reader with anthropological knowledge; rather, he primarily expects her to consider, if [s]he finds not the same in [her]self. 31 As a reader, I am supposed to check whether I can find what I am reading in the Leviathan in my own mind, and I am not simply to deliberate whether I generally agree with Hobbes views. In the end, I should acknowledge that certain truths about mankind describe appropriately my condition. Hence, what I acquire, as the ideal reader, is knowledge of mankind as applied to my mind, or knowledge of myself as being subject to the conditions described in part one of the book. Taken seriously, Hobbes aim is that the third-personal views he expounds will shape our first-personal self-conception. Keeping this in mind, it becomes clear that the accomplishment of Hobbes educational task depends largely on how precisely certain views on mankind are presented to the reader. They must be introduced to her such that she can embrace them as describing her own condition. It is against this background that I now suggest examining some particular instances of Hobbes educational practice. (a) Knowing our real interests. As a first example, I would like to take a closer look at the educational relevance of Hobbes naturalism. As mentioned in section one, the Leviathan only briefly sketches the mechanistic principles at the

14 Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Mankind in Hobbes Leviathan 17 bottom of the anthropology expounded. But why, if the ambition of this part of the text is educational rather than analytical, does he at all refer to this background? Why should the reader know the physical basis of the Hobbesian views on mankind, if the ultimate educational goal is to become a better citizen or sovereign? I have already pointed out the general idea of why knowledge of the mechanistic basis is crucial for Hobbes educational program: If the reader is to understand how man is the matter of the state, then she must know the causal mechanisms determining her social life. Having a rudimentary understanding of mechanist physics is, I have further argued, a necessary prerequisite for her getting the right conception of her being the artificer of the state. Still, one might wonder what precisely the reader learns about herself when she reads those passages of book one of the Leviathan in which Hobbes digresses into physics. We must thus be able to specify what outcome this digression is supposed to have for the reader. Fortunately, there is a very concrete result. It is well known that Hobbes was worried by the fact that we do not always act according to our own interests, but instead make decisions on the ground of either superstitious beliefs or fancies of glory. 32 We are living, he alleges, in the shadows of self-deceptive images of ourselves, even if this means that we act against our real interests. That is why, according to Hobbes, we tend to adhere to false understandings of our own good, and he is afraid, therefore, that this may eventually prevent us from accepting a conception of state that, he thinks, provides us with the best conditions for pursuing our true interests. It is thus a vital concern of his that we get rid of these self-deceiving images that prevent us from understanding our own true interests. But how is this possible, if we already adhere to these false views? It is to meet this challenge, I think, that the first chapter of the Leviathan contains a short exposition of Hobbes mechanistic principles. The idea seems to be that by taking this as a point of departure, the reader may learn from scratch to think of her mind in a new way. Thereby, hopefully, she naturally grows into the position from which she can conceive of her desires and endeavors as the effects of some contingent motion in the organs and interiour parts of mans body, caused [originally] by the action of things we See, Heare, &c. and retained in our imagination. 33 This might ultimately allow her to get a better understanding of her true interests. 34 We can thus conclude that it is an essential application of Hobbes educational practice that he provides the reader with an alternative theoretical description of her psychological dispositions. The didactic aim of this is that the reader learns to think of her interests in terms of naturally determined needs. The question might arise whether this is a successful strategy. Does not Hobbes miss a crucial point here? After all, given that the reader already has a self-deceptive image of herself, she may just resist the Hobbesian account and deny that it appropriately describes her mind.

15 18 Ursula Renz This is of course a real problem. Hobbes mechanistic approach is not very appealing to readers already indulging in superstitious belief or fancies of glory. But Hobbes seems to be deeply concerned with the motivations driving obstinate readers, and he is looking for some remedy against them. 35 As I am going to show in the next paragraph, Hobbes presents his views on glory in a way that is also meant to provide some such remedy. In parts three and four of the Leviathan, moreover, he is offering a therapeutic solution to the maladies of superstition. We can presume that, where Hobbes mechanist picture on mankind is not immediately convincing, he is willing to employ other means to persuade his audience. (b) The treatment of glory. As just indicated, the success of Hobbes educational project essentially depends on whether or not the reader comes to recognize her susceptibility to the charms of glory. To some, this might be surprising. It has recently been argued that, in contrast to what has often been claimed in the wake of Leo Strauss interpretation, 36 glory does not play as important a role in the Leviathan as it does in his previous works, De Cive and The Elements of Law. 37 It is true: Glory is less present in the Leviathan. But it is wrong to conclude that Hobbes no longer considered glory as playing a very dangerous role in human society. 38 After all, glory is still considered as one of the principal causes of the war of every man against every man in the Leviathan. 39 Remarkably, it is with respect to the passion of pride or glory that the title of the book is explained. We can presume that Hobbes still regarded it as crucial that the reader come to see the dangers of people s seeking glory. But why, one might wonder, did Hobbes no longer point out these dangers as vividly as he did in the earlier texts? I think there is a deep psychological insight behind his restrained depiction. Given how ridiculous most of man s behavior is when undertaken in the search for glory, it is rather difficult to bring others to acknowledge in a more than general and noncommittal way that they themselves are seducible by the promises of glory. It is hard to bear explicit confrontation with the ridiculous effects of one s own vanity and glory-seeking, and the more a person is susceptible to the temptations of glory the harder it is. Glory-seekers tend not to see that they are vain and behave ridiculously, while others will easily see it. Yet it is not the ridiculousness of others glory-seeking that Hobbes wants the reader to see in the Leviathan. 40 Instead, he wants her to learn that behind these outwardly ludicrous phenomena is a passion which, considered as such, is not at all outrageous, but an instance of a natural disposition, a disposition that the reader may also recognize in herself. So rather than a changed opinion concerning the potential harm caused by the passion of glory, it is tact and the desire not to alienate the reader which is behind Hobbes milder treatment of glory in the Leviathan: He tries to present glory such that it can be excused, even if it can never be justified. 41 This is why he defines glory as a species of